Syria

Spotlight on Iran* (November 7-20, 2016)

Faysal Meqdad, the Syrian deputy foreign minister, paid a visit to Tehran and met with senior Iranian officials. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, advisor to the speaker of the Majlis (the Iranian parliament) for international affairs, told him Iran would continue to support Syria in its fight against terrorism. Mohammad Bagheri, the Iranian chief of staff, said that
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (November 10-16, 2016)

The Iraqi army has taken over some of the eastern neighborhoods of Mosul. The Iraqi army is cleansing the rural area south of Mosul. The Shiite militias continue to advance toward Tal Afar, west of Mosul. ISIS continues its terrorist attacks on Iraqi cities, especially against Shiite targets and against the Iraqi regime. In Aleppo,
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (November 3-9, 2016)

ISIS continued its guerrilla warfare and terrorist activity against the attacking forces, and at the same time it carried out mass-casualty terrorist attacks in Tikrit and Samarra, north of Baghdad. On the propaganda level, ISIS stresses the false message that it has the upper hand and that its operatives are victorious in the various battle
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Spotlight on Iran* (October 23 – November 6, 2016)

Four Iranians, two of them high-ranking officers, were killed by rebels in Syria. They died during the attack begun by Syrian rebel organizations in Aleppo aimed at breaking the Syrian forces’ siege of the city’s eastern neighborhoods. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, meeting with families of Iranian fighters killed in Syria, said he was particularly
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (October 28-November 2, 2016)

The Iraqi army, advancing to the city from the south, is running into difficulties due to ISIS’s strong resistance, although it has enjoyed some local achievements. The Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi forces have reached Mosul from the north and the east and have completed cleansing the eastern rural area of the city. The forces
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (October 10-27, 2016)

October 17, 2016, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced the beginning of a military operation to take over Mosul. The city of Mosul, ISIS’s main stronghold where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate (June 4, 2014), is of symbolic value. The operation is led by the Iraqi army and the Kurdish
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